


Help, Dark and Loss

by More_night



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Episode: s01e07 Sorbet, Gen, M/M, Missing Scene, Stand Alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-24 20:53:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4934908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/More_night/pseuds/More_night
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place during Sorbet (1x07). Will feels torn away from everything, discusses the Ripper, has a one-night stand and there is no awkwardness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Help, Dark and Loss

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, world. This is what I've been doing instead of working on my grad school applications. 
> 
> Precisely, this fic takes off from the scene when they catch Silvestri in the ambulance and Will stares while Hannibal has his hands in someone. 
> 
> Text in italics are excerpts from mental spaces (memory palace, memories, dreams, visions, alternate version of events).
> 
> Two things at last. First, I used to write fanfiction in a relatively small fandom and it was not difficult to have read everything, but it's harder here. I did search for this type of fic, but tags may not be properly used all the time. What I'm saying is, maybe a fic very similar to this has already been written. If so, my apologies. Please believe it's accidental plagiarism. Because I'm pretty sure I was not the only one to see this possible turn of events in this episode.
> 
> Second, I have a confession to make: I don't do well, I think, with traditional, genre-fitting erotica. This story has an explicit rating because the p-word (that's penis) is used, but most descriptions of the act are not so graphic (I think) and the whole thing isn't too long, so I'm not sure it qualifies as smut.

Ahead of everyone, holding the shotgun to his chest, Jack Crawford sided the ambulance. The SWAT team followed, and then, as he stared at Hannibal Lecter, Will heard commands, rights read, uncocking of guns. And he could not stop staring.

“Will,” Doctor Lecter called out.

Will broke out of it, strode to the ambulance and jumped in. The recent constant tiredness had left him somewhat shaken, but quick, as if persistently panicked. His resolve to no longer sleep remained solid, even if he knew he was now nearing hyperfocus. He could no longer order the thoughts that came in his head, just letting them go by, inhabit him and flit around, then flit away. “What do you need?”

“Two more hemostatic clamps.” One hand probing in the man’s back, the doctor gestured at those already holding the wound open. “Like those. They should be in one of these containers behind you.” Will moved to the other side of the victim’s prone body and searched through the plastic boxes.

“Those?” he asked, showing the tiny, long, shining instruments.

Hannibal nodded, releasing the clamp he held with his right hand. He took the first of the other clamps that Will held out, then the second one, placing one vertically and sticking the other between the kidney and the chest wall, Will saw. He noticed Will’s gaze being drawn inside, grimly unsurprised, not sickened at the sight that combined blood pooling, dark red tones of flesh, muscles and organs, almost violet, and thin slices of beige fat joined to the skin.

The blinking red and blue streams of light from the police cars kept coming, in rounds after rounds, reflecting on their faces. The pulsing beams lulled some of the things present in a kind of wintery quiet, and Will kept staring still. He went from Hannibal’s hands, both of them now gloved and wrist-deep in the victim’s side, to a tiny droplet of blood on the bunched sleeve of his clear shirt, to his face, showing a multitude of things, all sublimated into concentration or intensity. As he watched, Will became aware too late that Hannibal’s focus had shifted and was now on him. Seeing was always like this: eventually, he saw so much and became so selfless that he would not notice if what he observed looked straight back, and he would find himself lost, abandonned and vacillating, left to the cold hands of his talent and torn open, just like this prostrate man.

“Will. One more favor, if I may?” Hannibal asked. Outside, a small troop of policemen gathered near the parked black trucks. From the corner of his eye, Will saw them as birds flying in a tight, disordered group and he heard their whining cries, and he felt so tired again, but the image left.

“Sure.”

“Please roll up my right sleeve.”

“Oh.” Will stared at the shirt sleeve, starting to unfold from where it was bundled up at Hannibal’s elbow. Making sure his coat would not touch the unconscious body, he reached out over the victim and straightened the sleeve’s cuff. He rolled it over itself, his fingers mostly managing to avoid the contact of skins, although not entirely. Hannibal held his arm motionless and straight for the operation, his left hand still mostly inside the wound. When it was done, he made a measured movement. It caused the lenght of his naked forearm to brush against the inside of Will’s right wrist. It was short enough to be conjectural, but long enough to betray intention. It had been mannerly and calm. It would seem like more of a question and less of an offering. 

“Thank you.”

Exhaling through his nose, Will brought his head up and met Hannibal’s eyes over the victim’s body. The psychiatrist’s face was almost entirely impassive, save for a softness that contrasted all the more with the reverend concentration that had previously been there. Will could not place exactly the source of the features’ sudden tenderness. There was no smile, the lips were straight, no tiny wrinkle, even breathing, eyebrows taut, nose unflared. Yet the eyes were warmer, even if the diffuse warmth seemed shaded. Will stiffened and something that was not him wrapped around him and carried him deeper within himself, where he would be safe forever and never get out.

Sitting back down, he broke eye-contact and watched the doctor’s fingers tangle in the wound again. There were a few rapid stitches. The thread and curved needle lay just beside Hannibal, on the seat, prepared. Silvestri had placed it there beforehand, he had planned to regret his move, knew how bad he was at this and had had all things ready for when things would go wrong, this time, uncertain that he would attain his aim – afraid, tiny, unremarkable, decidedly, definitely, eternally not the Ripper.

He looked up again, hearing gloves snapping off the other man’s hands. “I feared I would have my hands in this poor man for the next hour,” Hannibal said.

“How fine will he be?” Will asked.

Hannibal inspected the wound. “Part of his kidney will be lost. Internal bleeding is still probable. And I can’t see his bowel,” he narrated. Rolling his sleeves down his arms again, he eyed Will, thoughts absent. “Most people without medical training, even from law enforcement, are repelled by the sight of surgery,” he commented.

Shaking his head slightly, Will pursed his lips. “I dream of worse stuff every night,” he said, and for a moment, his mind evoked dreams around him and he wavered. Mind and reality fused together. The open doors of the ambulance let in the terrible darkness from the outside, and the dreadful white snow, ready to close on him, like jaws imprisoning preys to shake and break them. But then he returned to Hannibal Lecter, bright under the cold clinical lights of the ambulance, waiting for him to speak. The smell of blood started to rise in the air. “And you make it seem like it’s... civilized,” he added.

The other man gave a dull smile. “It’s mostly a show, born of study and practice, I just make up appearances. It is in fact quite messy. Especially in this case.”

Will shrugged. “It seems messier on crime scenes. At least he’s alive and under.” An old crime scene popped up before his eyes, superimposing on everything else. _The bodies laced up in cable on the floor, and when Will had seen them, they had started to squiver, the way they would if they just wanted out of the ropes around them, alive despite their closed faces and their dead eyes. And everyone around him had kept talking, and the bodies on the floor had moaned and trashed_.

“No, not under.” Hannibal shook his head. “He’s merely sedated. I don’t know what was used, he could actually wake up just now.” Leaning back against the ambulance wall, he considered something for a time, letting his gaze leave the patient and the white vehicle interior and hover on the people outside. “May I offer you a drink, after?” he invited, still looking away.

Will swallowed. “Okay. Your place?”

“If that’s suitable.”

Will said yes. Then the exclusive pocket of space built between them atop the breathing body fell apart. EMTs assembled around them, policemen were walking around and finally Jack arrived. Will stepped down from the ambulance. As he walked away, he heard Jack say, “Doctor Lecter. Thank you, for what you did today.” Then a SWAT team member exclaimed loudly as he passed by and Will jerked slightly.

 

* * *

 

Will paced in the snow, letting the chill fill his strained neck, troubled, yet coiled. Beverly and Jack were talking with other officers, both from the local police and the FBI, going over jurisdiction issues. Hannibal was still close to the ambulance. He had slipped his jacket back on and was talking with another doctor that had arrived with the Baltimore police. In the ambulance, two more doctors had their hands on or inside the patient, Will could not see. They had put him on a portable respirator just moments ago.

When he had stepped down from the vehicle to let the EMTs in, Will had started to feel a rush of loneliness, which still persisted on the borders of his mind. He wondered what it was exactly with Hannibal Lecter that made him feel safe and liked, and home, him and all of his darkest thoughts together. The man’s carefully crafted body language let nothing through but a form of infinite conviviality that could not be entirely true. Will had accepted the touch, and the drink, without a second thought.

Devon Silvestri was in custody in the back of a police truck. How lonely do you need to get to want to be close to a serial killer – or try to, Will thought.

“Will,” Jack called out. Will joined them in the FBI car and sat in the back with Beverly. Hannibal sat in the front and Jack insisted to drive. Will touched his head to the window. Lamp posts and empty streets were incredibly reassuring. They fit the state of his mind, which would not stop emptying until there was nothing left in it, apart from silent rooms.

“You okay, champ’?” Beverly asked.

“Yeah,” Will said, slipping his glasses off. He was distantly listening to Jack and Hannibal talking about procedures of arrest. Then an anecdote from Hannibal’s surgeon days. Then an anecdote on Jack’s part. 

“You were right about the internal cardiac massage. Zeller managed to pull fingerprints from the heart muscle of the hotel victim,” she said, reading from her phone.

Will smiled in the darkness. He wished he would stop being right about ways to die or not die, and start being right about himself or others, or life in general.

They arrived at the FBI drop-off and left the car. Beverly walked off. Jack hung around for a while until Hannibal insisted that he should be leaving, putting a stop to the long, unnerving moment during which Will stared at his feet, trying all he could not to let others invite him in the conversation. At last, Jack shook Hannibal’s hand again and gave a nod to Will. Both Hannibal and Will stood still and watched him walk away.

“I’ll take my car and follow you,” Will said, after a moment. Hannibal tracked him with his eyes as Will went to his car, surrounded in the crude shadows of the parking lot.

 

* * *

 

Outside, icy rain was falling on the pavement and wind blew in the leaveless trees. The cold enlived Will and he felt less anxious, and more preparing, not knowing exactly what to expect, and somewhere expecting for part of him to forget its own existence.

Hannibal opened the door, took his coat, not even brushing against him, polite in all ways, and led him to the living room. Will walked numbly, searching for his strenght, finding only bones and overwrought muscles. He had never been farther than the kitchen in this house. He noticed the dark walls, the rarer art, and took in the same sentiment he had often felt in the psychiatrist’s office, that things were crowded and organized, but not yet closing-in on him.

The hearth was small, and fire burned with occasional pops. The smell of burning wood filled the air, and for Will it was _camping and trailer parks. His father told him not to stand too close to the fire. There were packs of beer stacked beside the chairs and people gathered, and there were songs and lenghts of time and blurred faces and the trees in the forest and taking his shoes off to walk knee-deep in the water at night_ , but none of it was stable and it crumbled.

Will stood beside an armchair as Hannibal poured them brandy. “You seemed deep in thought,” Hannibal started, holding the glass out.

Only thanking him, Will sat down. The chair welcomed his body and he reclined into it so that it would also take all the heaviness he carried.

“Jack is still determined to talk with Mr Silvestri extensively. He thinks there may be a connection between him and the Chesapeake Ripper,” Hannibal went on, sitting down as well.

Will grinned. “He’ll be in a room five minutes with this guy, realize he was wrong, then he’ll be pissed for two weeks. Probably at me, for being right.”

“You sound triumphingly right,” Hannibal observed.

Will sipped from his glass, eyes to the fire, resting in its ever-changing shapes that did not look back. “Have you seen this guy? He walks like the world is about to crush him, he barely flinched when you said he was doing it wrong. He just he took it. There is not an ounce of pride in this man. The Ripper is all glee and glory and grandeur,” he told, the words a bit weary, but still vehement.

Knowing Will would feel compelled to look at him if he stared, Hannibal’s eyes settled for an indistinct patch of ground, half-way between the fire and Will’s armchair. “If those were your thoughts, when you looked at me, what is it that you saw exactly?”

“Many things,” was the initial, low answer. Then, “You reminded me of him. Of the Ripper. No offense,” Will apologized, arching his eyebrows, turning slightly toward Hannibal.

Hannibal smiled, civil but curious. “None taken. In what way?”

Will straightened his back and his head tilted backwards until he was looking at the ceiling, and whether he searched for thoughts or words, he did not exactly know. “You were reverent,” he ended up saying. “In the contact with flesh and death. It was solemn, but exact. Respectful, but not too much. It was your world.”

Hannibal could not exactly tell whether he was listening intently, or if he had been raptured by something he knew and that had yet to know him. He remained certain that one could not be elevated, in the religious sense, by something that did not possess them. But then, Will Graham possessed more than he knew. “I’m afraid you mistook concentration for devotion,” he only replied.

“No, it was stunning,” Will said. “I used to think the Ripper scorned most things about his killings, that all that mattered was the reaction. His victims are nuisances to him, if you keep in mind they’re persons. But if you think of them as means to an end, they’re the means to beauty and he genuinely reveres it.”

For a moment, Hannibal’s eyes flickered, but he waited before speaking. “Isn’t it faulty to consider killing to be genuine, instead of perverted?”

Will drank silently. Hannibal took his glass to his lips as well. “There’s no perversion in art. Art can be pure. You can want attention, you can do it for the show, for people to know how good you are. You can also do it because you think that beautiful things should exist, even where no one sees them,” the profiler explained, his words chasing each others in the way they did when they formed like bubbles on the surface of his mind.

“Both goals can be achieved simultaneously,” Hannibal provided, after a moment.

Sighing, Will considered the thought. “It’s perilous to do both. Eventually, you end up on one side or the other,” he said. “But the Ripper just keeps walking the line.”

Hannibal got up and took Will’s empty glass. “Do you like him?” he asked, his back turned.

“I don’t know him.”

“You think you do,” Hannibal pointed out. Will listened to the sound of the brandy dribbling in glasses. It was strangely sharp, like pieces falling apart, then coming together.

“I guess when you strive to understand someone, or something, so much, it morphs into a form of propensity, or kinship. Or I’m just sleep-deprived.” He took the glass Hannibal gave him. “It sounds insane, doesn’t it?”

“It’s not insane. However, I would advise you not to state it publicly,” the psychiatrist offered. Will sensed the gape between public information and secretive affinity open and widen. Now, in this house not his own, he felt cushioned, as much as he would if he shut his eyes closed, buried his head in his hands and was granted the wish to disappear.

“It’s as if he knows I’m here, looking for him in the way only I can. He’s giving me so much sometimes, it feels like he’s doing it on purpose, just feeding the fire. Everytime I find something new, I understand less,” he breathed, eyes gone again.

Hannibal slid his hand over his crossed leg, leveling folds in his pants. “Your sleeping habits are irregular. Your attention cannot not be affected.”

“It’s like a puzzle,” Will continued. “I keep finding pieces, but they don’t come from the same box.”

“Or you don’t have an accurate image of your model,” Hannibal suggested, lifting his glass to his lips and waiting before he drank. “When you find him, things will make more sense.”

Will shook his head. “I’m afraid they won’t. What if the picture I drew is not at all the one I get in the end?” he whispered. “I have the feeling I’ll be sourly disappointed, when the time comes. ” He then turned to look at Hannibal and he knew that there would always be more secrets, and more times when he would feel he could confide in this man. He simultaneously wanted to be alone forever and wished he could find words for all things that came to his mind. But he knew that neither would ever be fact.

“Your talent involves no fantasy. You know what you see, it’s not false.”

“I know that I know what I see. But I pictured such a terrifying, horribly magnificient sight of this one, sole killer… He’s like a ghost, immaterial. I wonder what I’ll feel like when he turns out to be a man,” Will said.

“Some men stand out. You do.”

“Not in that same way. I hope,” Will whispered, frowning. He took a sip. “I’m sorry. This is creepy.”

Hannibal’s eyes were drawn to the fire again and his smile was softer. “Average, I would say, if one takes into account your normal level of creepiness.”

Will chuckled, finished his glass and knew he had drunk too fast. A short wave of unsteadiness came. “I just compared you to a serial killer. At lenght,” he said.

The psychiatrist shrugged. “You compared yourself to him as well. Those are simple thoughts, they can do no harm.” 

Setting his empty glass down in his lap, Will looked at Hannibal who did not look back. He could not count exactly how many years it had been, since he had done anything like this. It seemed like some, but not too much. Still, it felt like walking away from home, knowingly, to try and obtain something he knew he could not keep. There was also something in the distance involved in this that he particularly appreciated. For once, he was in control, even if it was fragile. At least, he could try.

“Was I very obvious?” he inquired, finally.

“No. One would have needed to watch carefully,” Hannibal answered. “Was I?”

“No.” Now, the few feet that separated their two chairs seemed a wide space, where, again, an uncertain urge settled. “What did it look like, when I looked at you?”

“You seemed to be longing.”

Waiting for a moment, Will peered into his glass. “If I was an official patient, you could lose your license for this, right?” he asked.

“If a number of conditions were met, yes. Does it bother you?”

Will shook his head.

Hannibal got up to pour their third drink. “Do you prefer to be drunk? Or do you need to be?”

“No. No, not tonight,” Will said, his voice quieter than he had expected. The circumstances were starting to weigh him down, and when it seemed like he would never come out of his chair, he rose and walked to Hannibal and stood beside him, surveying his features as the glasses were filled again. The psychiatrist let him look before turning toward him and also staring, unabashedly, like he had earlier this evening. Will did not know whether it was proximity or similarity that surprised him the most every time he thought of how well they understood each other without words, or with them.

Not looking away, Hannibal offered him his glass. Their hands brushed when Will grasped it and Hannibal slid his fingers over his. Will broke their shared gaze and he looked at a point far in the distance for a moment, then closed his eyes and lowered his head, his movements suddenly abrupt.

Hannibal started pulling away, but the younger man jerked forward and grasped his hand. He was always expecting the routine pre-coital talk to be weird, but honesty was not something he was shy of, when the situation asked for it. As of yet, there had been no situation involving Hannibal Lecter, that had not required every shred of his honesty. At first, he had expected it to be draining, and initially, it had been. Then it had become slightly easier every time, and eventually, his mind felt depleted by it, brought to its limits and back, and Will felt maximally expanded and whole, mapped. On some days, all of this seemed better, brighter, healthier. On others, like today, it was a desert saturated with its own width, and there was nothing left to do but walk. “One thing. We’ll go back to normal, after this, right?” he asked, surprised by how steady his own voice was.

Hannibal nodded once. “Of course,” he said, stepping minutely closer. Will expected more words, questions, hints, but none came and Hannibal’s eyes were now everywhere on his face.

Their noses almost touched and Will’s eyes dropped to Hannibal’s lips. The other man’s look was as engrossed as it had been hours ago, over the open wound. But now his lips were parted and his cheeks slightly flushed. In one swift motion, Hannibal moved closer and kissed him, close-mouthed and brief, confirming, yet not engaging. Will pressed back against him, his hand finding the other man’s forearm, gripping it. His fingers looked like bonds, or claws, and he kept them tight for some time.

Hannibal slipped his arm around Will, tipping his head to the side slightly. Then he reached out slowly and pulled Will’s glasses from his nose and set them down. “One-night stands are mostly awkward,” Will whispered.

“Sometimes,” Hannibal agreed. “They don’t have to be. Not if we’re scrupulous with each other.”

Will arched his eyebrows and leaned forward, so that their noses did touch. “I’m not as miserable as I look like.”

Pulling back, Hannibal unbuttoned his jacket and Will brought his hand to Hannibal’s side, determined in touching, and tentative in touching a person whose eyes he knew, whose body language he would meet again, day after day, both bold in abstract need of touch and shy in this particular one. “I don’t think you’re miserable. I think you desire human contact, on select occasions,” Hannibal corrected.

“I’d like to choose the occasion. I don’t feel like I chose this. I feel overwhelmed.”

“By what?”

Will moved forward and the lenght of their bodies came together. “Being remote from everything.” Hannibal was briefly taken aback at how assertive the kiss was. Will opened both their lips, their tongues touched and their hearts beat notably faster, and both of them felt the other holding on more firmly. “I’m always alone. It’s fine most of the time. I want it,” the other man said against his mouth.

“Except on specific days.”

“Yes,” Will murmured.

Lifting a hand, Hannibal brought it to Will’s head and rested his thumb on his ear. The other man closed his eyes. “I don’t believe you are overwhelmed, Will. You have an untrained measure of the force that inhabits you. As it grows overworked and your mind becomes threadbare, it may come out in… unfathomable bursts.”

In Hannibal’s back, the two warm spots where Will pressed his hands under his jacket became brighter. “I don’t want to control it. It’s… deathly. I’m still not sure if you understand just how dark things can get when you live in my mind,” Will said, drawing back.

Hannibal’s eyes looked like they could not get deep enough into Will’s. Will felt like wind had suddenly blown over him and he bent and warped in the moving, fierce kiss Hannibal gave him. He did not remember distinctly when contact had felt this needed. He was alone, and nobody else was, save for Hannibal, who was alone with him, here, and now, their tongues languid and sharp and melting.

Will's fingers reached for Hannibal’s necktie. Hannibal covered his hand with his own. “I’d like for something to be… positive. I’m just walking on air and filling void. And there’s always more void,” Will said.

Unfastening the tie completely, Hannibal did not move as Will’s hands took it off his neck. “If I recall, you once needed a negative to show you a positive.”

“Yeah.” Will rolled the silken fabric in a compact cylinder, placing it on the wooden surface, next to his glasses.

“It could have been anyone but me,” Hannibal said, undoing the first two buttons of Will’s shirt.

“No, it’s-… I can’t do this with complete strangers,” Will said, wryly.

“Nor with someone you would consider as a potential romantic partner,” Hannibal remarked.

Will exhaled and placed his hands on the other man’s hips, leveling their faces yet not looking at him. “Can we please not go there?”

“Agreed,” Hannibal said. “Where exactly do you want us to go?”

Will was not sure if the warmth on his cheek came from Hannibal’s breath or from his own. Both of them smelled and tasted like brandy. “Your bedroom would be appropriate at this point. Or wherever you sleep.”

Giving a tiny, friendly smile, Hannibal noted, “You’re the only one of us who sleeps in his living room.” He stepped back then, took his glass from the table and drank it down in one sip.

Will was led to the staircase and as he climbed the steps, he felt precise, grounded, in strangely familiar territory, no longer in the infinitely planned space of Hannibal’s office, yet neither faced with the cold, ununderstanding bond offered by a stranger’s face. He did not notice the exact layout of the house, nor did he completely register how he was not pushed away by Hannibal Lecter’s intimacy. The man was only normal in this respect, as in most others, seeking closeness, being quite forward about it. It seemed competent and it betrayed habit, solitude, and Will felt standard in this wrecked world.

He hesitated briefly at the top of the stairs and Hannibal bumped into him gently, then leaned against him, his chest against Will’s back. Will twisted his head around, eyes shut, seeking lips, and he found only a cheek and a neck and strands of hair.

They were in the room already when Will opened his eyes again. “You don’t generally do this, do you?” he asked.

A short moment passed, during which Hannibal’s mind seemed to drift far away, in a very rapid flash. And then it was gone and he answered: “I prefer longer relationships, with a little more stability, but with precise boundaries, that both partners agree on.”

“You don’t commit in excess, that would be… weak,” Will observed, more coolly than would have been nice.

“Will,” Hannibal cut him, standing close. His face was mostly blank while he slipped two fingers in between two buttons of Will’s shirt, his other hand up against his neck. “Stop talking.”

They grew somewhat hurried and kissed against a wall. Will was suddenly eager, but avoided eyes dutifully. Hannibal met him in all aspects, perfectly careful now not to stare, nor to be faster or slower. When Hannibal slipped his hands under his shirt, Will forced the other man’s head upwards with his nose, lips against his neck, up to his ear. He sensed that Hannibal would have closed his eyes, and he looked again and saw the parted lips, knew the arms around him and his melancholy seemed important and shared. Yet he did not feel accompanied at all in this, and he wondered if he should not try and seek for more, but pushed the thought out and away.

Both of them undressed together, not leaving each other, tumultuously. Will wanted only to be covered in other skin, in other movement. To not see blood, or bodies, or severed parts, or dying eyes in living persons, or knives entering necks or jaws or thighs. He wanted only continuity and warmth, and Hannibal was as warm as life, yet as soft as a welcoming, empty, quiet house.

At one point, arms wrapped around him from behind and one hand tilted his head backwards. Will followed the motion, arching the rest of his body. He breathed, trying to snake his arms back. He only grasped Hannibal’s undershirt and palmed his sides. “I can’t reach you back there,” he mouthed, twisting around.

A mix of colors and touches descended on him after that and he was envelopped in the gestures he found himself making, strangely detaching as he often would. Hannibal’s mouth on his thigh. Will’s hand searching his, thumb over his wrist, closing in the dark and locking them together. The other man’s blond-grey hair caressing his shoulder blades, like feathers. Hands pressing in his back. Bed sheets ruffled in shapes that caught his eye before he sensed feathers again on his stomach.

Focusing, Will pulled his mind together as much as he could gather the lingering pieces, and he isolated proprioception. Then, there were only pressures, forces, masses, places and crushing and sliding. He could not escape himself. Arms ran along his and rested there, spread out, mingling fingers, a chest swelling against his back, pushing him further inward. They were one single angelic figure, descending in the bed. Will hoped to be swallowed in a mouthful of hands that would grab him and hold him suspended forever, in the delicate place where he would not have to look at anybody.

Suddenly, he was in an obscure ocean, wide and depthless. He he saw white shores in the blackness that extended everywhere else.

He realized he had opened his eyes when he heard Hannibal call his name, breathing against his cheek. Their foreheads touched and Will slowed down, hips only slowly rocking now. The other man exhaled sharply and his hand let go of Will’s penis, and Will swayed a little forward, but Hannibal moved his hand upwards to cradle Will’s face. Will did not shut his eyes. Hannibal ran his fingers through his hair, extremely caring, yet adeptly blank and Will was lost for a time. Sitting up a little against the pillows bunched against the head post, Hannibal brought them close, chest and chest. “Close your eyes,” he breathed, then, lips against Will’s throat.

Will did not realize that he finally had stopped looking. He was not entirely sure he had seen Hannibal’s head thrown back, showing little, even in pleasure, his throat exposed, his eyes shut, one hand holding Will’s shoulder, the other grasping the pillows beside him.

 

* * *

 

After, Will lay on his back, mind emptied, not aware if he slumbered or not, not yet ill-at-ease, lingering in serenity for now. Endorphins, he knew, flowed into his tired self and he did not know what he waited for. He was glad to think of nothing and only examine the particular shade of blue in the bed’s coverlet.

“Do you intend to stay the night?” Hannibal asked, his back to him, in a voice not dismissive, but not particularly conversational.

Will arched his eyebrows, straightening, knowing he should gather his knees, slip his legs off the bed, dress, get in his car, go back home, now. “I usually leave,” he said instead, motionless.

Turning towards him, Hannibal did not face him yet, and Will thought that maybe, eventually, there was a limit beyond which the politeness did not extend. But he was not there yet. He hoped he had glimpsed it, even if it would have been preferable not to. “It’s past one,” Hannibal pointed out. “I’ll make coffee tomorrow. I promise you, no awkwardness.”

“Most of the time, I can’t even sleep, actually. You won’t need to make coffee. You can shut the lights, I’ll find my way.”

 

* * *

 

_The moon had gone over the house. The glow that emanated from the window was only dim, but Hannibal could still make out the other man’s features in the darkness. Will was lying on his back, the ligaments tense in his neck, eyes agitated under his lids and Hannibal watched silently, intent to capture this moment and never let go of it again. After a moment, he leaned out of the bed, making sure to move slowly, and opened the first drawer in the bedside table, going for the knife taped at the back of it. Gently, he peeled it off and, leaden, twisted his arm back in the bed._

_For a time, he lay on his left side, the blade close to his own chest, feeling it warm to his body, waiting for something to happen. But nothing happened save for the rising of a vast warmth, that curled and swirled upon itself. Brief and sharp, he reached out and the blade entered Will’s chest between the clavicles. It was not deep enough to dive through the cartilage, it slid open only skin until the ribcage ended. Then Hannibal felt it sink deeper, as if it were falling inside the body, dragged down. Sliding through clothing, he kept going until he was at the pubis, then he pulled the blade out. Will’s body started to widen, the contents of his torso shifting, searching for their new position, falling apart, some of the organs tearing._

_Hannibal took his eyes from the gaping wound because Will’s fingers touched his shoulder. The man’s head was turned on its side to look at him._ _“Why are you stopping?” he asked calmly. Then he lifted himself partly and moved his face closer. Hannibal could not smell any blood, only something vaguely putrefied, and Will said, “I want your reverence.”_

_The wounded man took his hand. Hannibal let go of the knife and let his fingers be taken deep into the wound, until he could feel bone. He stared keenly at his own wrist inside Will’s abdomen. The organs shone and sparkled, dark, irregular oval shapes blocking an intense glow that came from deeper. Then the edges of the opening started to close and he abandoned himself inside, hoping to be entirely eaten, if only he could be dissolved in the beauty he had witnessed._

Inhaling quietly, Hannibal opened his eyes and looked beside him, where Will was asleep. He had kept a distance between them and quickly the other man’s breathing had evened and deepened significantly. Hannibal attempted to recall the images he had dreamed, as exactly as he could, but found them fleeting and impervious, grounds of his mind slippery under his feet, so much that he was not certain he was still walking on a surface and not swimming or trying to not drown. 

He got out of bed, slipped on a sweater and sat down in a nearby armchair, gaze fixed on the bed, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, concentrating on the paler spots of sheets among the blankets. After a time, he noticed the tremors that shook Will’s body as he slept. A few seconds later, the convulsion stopped and Hannibal eyed the clock on the wall. Fourteen minutes later another myoclonic seizure started. He leaned back into the armchair, crossed his legs and watched the shuddering body.

 

* * *

 

Will blinked not aware he had closed his eyes at all. Rarely in the past had sleep felt like such an instant drop of consciouness, like looking down into a well and losing sight of the sun. The first thing he saw was Hannibal Lecter standing, putting the tails of a dark blue shirt in his pants. The opaque blinds were open and the linen of the tall white veils beneath let the morning light in the room. “What time is it?”

“A little before seven.” Hannibal slipped on his waist-jacket and buttoned it up, all the while not looking at Will. After a moment, he acknowledged the younger man staring at him fixingly, again, the shadow in his eyes somehow soothed, but insistent nonetheless. “What is it?” he asked quietly.

Sitting in bed, Will looked away and answered softly, “I was expecting a comment on me sleeping here and not leaving.”

A corner of Hannibal’s mouth smiled, while he fastened his cuffs. His tie hung from his neck, his hair was washed but not placed yet. He looked less composed than his usual public self and less unguarded than naked. “No psychoanalysis in bed,” he only said. “Coffee?”

 

* * *

 

Once Hannibal had left the room, Will stayed in bed for a few minutes. He got up when he noticed he was starting to take in his surroundings, losing himself in the geometric spots of clean daylight on the floor, seeing how beautiful, well-ordered everything was in here. He did not feel the urge to leave yet. Hannibal had been kind, yet distant enough, precisely as promised.

There had been no lingering stare, no insistent smile. Will dressed in yesterday’s clothes and felt surprisingly whole, loneliness now tucked away, in its right place, just beside the heart, not stopping it from pumping the blood, not far away enough to be forgotten, just not in his throat anymore.

 

* * *

 

Their was a coffee cup for him on the kitchen counter. The sunlight danced on the furniture and the countertops looked less like back-off cold and more like open darkness, and the oven and fridge seemed less stainless steel and more basket of small bursting rays. Hannibal had brought down his jacket, but it was draped over a chair, and he was still only partially dressed, reminding Will that neat things were still not completely back in place between them. It unsettled him, he would have prefered to come down to a non-private world. Hannibal sliced a pear in quarters, then the quarters in parts. “Why don’t you tell Alana that you are romantically interested in her?”

Will cleared his throat. “I… My request not to go there is still valid.”

The other man had not looked Will directly in the eye since he had entered the room, but he sought for his gaze now. Will avoided it. “You don’t have to declare yourself. You can keep her close, as a friend, or as a colleague, and enjoy the moments you have together, even if the reason of your enjoyment must remain out of sight. You may think it a further safety – to preserve yourself.” Hannibal sipped his coffee.

Not knowing exactly what to make of the emotional poking, Will smoothed a few wrinkles from his shirt. “No scrambled eggs?” he asked, now openly deflecting.

“I supposed breakfast would be akward,” Hannibal replied.

“You brought me breakfast when we didn’t even know each other.”

“The context was different,” Hannibal said, his voice a bit softer. “We hadn’t had sex the previous night,” he spelled out.

Will made a point not to flinch at the straight-forward wording. “All this time, have you just been interested?” he asked, genuinely going for the gut.

“No.” Hannibal settled his mug down. “You are the most truthful person I have ever encountered. This is why I appreciate your company.”

“Have you ever been in love?” Will pressed, trying to get something else than the truth, something that would say something about something else, instead of the polished version of reality Hannibal sent back to him.

“No. Does it seem heartless?”

And Will knew that he was fine again. “I don’t know. I do know you’re lying,” he said, feeling warmer, more confident, knowing that he could still see through the psychiatrist just as much as Hannibal could see through him.

Will focused on his coffee and waited for the coming question in reply. When none came, he looked up and found Hannibal chewing on a piece of pear, apparently undisturbed. He tried not to think about how cruel he felt and finished his coffee.

His coat was where Hannibal had hung it last night, in the hall. Will made it there, while Hannibal stood in the kitchen’s doorway, jacket on, more than fairly distant now, public again, the daylight coming from behind him flooding the floor. “On the off-chance that Jack or Beverly saw me leaving with you last night…” Will started.

Hannibal nodded. “We need to accord our stories.”

“Yes.”

The other man moved closer, stopping three feet from Will, his hands in the pockets of his trousers. “You came here, we had a few drinks, I insisted you didn’t drive, you slept in the guest room,” he suggested.

Will adjusted his glasses on his nose. “Sounds fair.”

For a moment, Hannibal’s face went entirely blank. Will did not know yet how to interpret that and did not know if he ever would. His features seemed devoid of expression, empty, as if the soul had somehow retreated entirely in the body. It appeared curiously alien, dangerous and wounded and, contemplating it, Will felt a kind of vertigo, the way one would feel if the rug was pulled from under their feet, violently. Why would there be such a poignant need to hide, or fall?

Hannibal extended his hand. “Back to normal?” he asked. “You’re still invited to my soiree this Saturday.”

Assenting carefully, Will shook the offered hand. When his skin touched Hannibal’s again, he concentrated on the firmness, rather than on the warmth, on the present, rather than on the memories, on Hannibal’s dressed arm – he could not see anything above the wrist –, rather than on the palm he recalled kissing. Soon, he thought, there would be enough dreams to fill his head with morbid imaging, sudden deaths, bodies hanging, severed bleeding extremities, arterial versus venous blood sprays.

 

* * *

 

It was 7:40 when Hannibal Lecter arrived at his office. He unlocked the doors and adjusted a pillow on the seat in the waiting room. Stepping inside, he hung his coat in the back room and climbed the ladder to the upper floor, picking up his first patient’s notebook. He lay it on his desk and aligned its corner with his pen.

He sat down, then got up again. Pacing the room, he listened to the front door not opening, the tall walls of the office being still and blind. Only his unsettled mind fluttered.

Coming to a stop by the tall window, _he went to the hotel room where he had first brought Will breakfast. He placed the bag with the containers down and knocked. When Will opened the door, he shoved him inside effortlessly. The blade in his hand went from the side of Will’s throat to the bottom of the ribs in a curve that he traced carefully, then he settled the body down as it flailed._

_After having watched Will die, Hannibal went back outside, grasped the bag and brought it to the table, where a living Will sat and waited, placid._

_“It’ll need more work,” Will observed, eyeing his own body, lying on the bed, posed with spread arms and crossed feet, head crowned in a pool of blood._

_Hannibal unpacked the containers and plates. “There will be plenty more time. I am patient.”_

_They ate in silence, the light filtered in grey tones through the thick blinds. Once Will was finished, he got up, seeming pensive, or curious. “Watch this,” he said. Then he moved to the side of the bed and folded both of the body’s arms until the hands rested on the eyes, blinding it himself._

_“Hm,” Hannibal approved, setting his fork down._

_Coming back to the table to sit, Will smiled, apparently satisfied. “God forbid we become friendly,” he quoted._

_“I think we’re there already,” Hannibal answered._

_“You weren’t expecting this.”_

_“Expectations are but dreams that wake with us and walk into our world.”_

_Will looked trustful again, as he turned to him. “Are you sure they’re your dreams?” he asked, all heart_.

And things were still again, beautiful in their organization, shifting subtly, but not unbearably. He heard the front door open and waited for 8 o’clock to greet his patient.

 

* * *

 

When Will walked in, his dogs gathered around him and all of their noses went up along his pants, on his hands, their paws on his chest, as they investigated the unknown smells. Welcomed, smiling, he pushed his way through them while they pushed their way past him and outside. Winston stood on the porch and wagged his tail, sitting, but he scuttled away when Will walked inside to shower.

His class was at 2 o’clock and Alana Bloom’s lecture started at 1:30. When he walked by her classroom, normally, he would not even look. But now he would like to feel her reasonably close, he could watch her settle in, maybe see her in the hallways too. He readied his bag. Laptop, notes, files, pictures for the slides and slung the strap over his shoulder.

_He took the sheets of paper, bundled them in the right file in his bag and rose from the table. Most other panel speakers were sticking around, members of the audience got up on the stage. Hands were shaken. Beer was about to be shared. He only wanted to leave._

_His eyes were on his bag when she extended her hand. “Hi. Dr Alana Bloom.”_

_“Will Graham.” He shook her hand, looking at her upper arm, noticing the dress, elegant and simple, the flowing hair. He tilted his head higher so he could look above her shoulder and see her face in the peripheral angle._

_“I meant to ask you a question about your definition of sociopathy.”_

_“You didn’t ask during the question period?”_

_“I wanted a real answer.”_

_Will pushed his glasses closer to his eyes. “Pardon?”_

_Dr Bloom smiled a wide, but fine smile. “I wanted to know your mind, instead of making you think you had to defend your point again.”_

_“Are you always this explicit about implicit social conventions? Or are you just nervous?”_

_“The first one. Do you mind it?”_

_His smile left him on its own. “No. No, it’s fine.”_


End file.
